Phillips on Barack Obama

I notice a lot of people are visiting this site by searching for information about Barack Obama. You might therefore be interested in a piece in the Spectator by Melanie Phillips entitled Princess Obama. Here are the central paragraphs:

Welcome to Planet Diana. It was only with the death of the People’s Princess that the extent of Britain’s transformation from a country of reason, intelligence, stoicism, self-restraint and responsibility into a land of credulousness, emotional incontinence, sentimentality, irresponsibility and self-obsession became shatteringly apparent. Princess Diana was an icon of the new Britain because she embodied precisely those latter characteristics.

It became clear that politicians could score remarkable short-term success if they too got in touch with their inner trauma and felt everyone else’s pain. Bill Clinton (hideous irony for Hillary) was the first to realise this and made it his political signature. Tony Blair, whose lip periodically quivered with precision timing, had it in spades. David Cameron has it; so too does Obama.

The effect is electric, but short-lived. That is because Dianafication is essentially empty, amoral, untruthful and manipulative; eventually voters see through it and realise they have been played for suckers. But while it lasts -- and it creates presidents and prime ministers -- reason doesn’t get a look in. Warm fuzzy feelings win hands down because they anaesthetise reality and blank out altogether those difficult issues which require difficult decisions. Obama appears to be on the wrong side of just about every important issue going; indeed, were he to be elected president he would be a danger to the free world. But hey – the guy makes people feel good about themselves; he stands for hope, love, reconciliation, youthfulness and fairies at the bottom of the garden.

Actions Speak Louder

This really deserves as wide dissemination as possible:

One would think that countries that committed to the Kyoto treaty are doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions. One would also think that the United States, the only country that does not even intend to ratify, keeps on emitting carbon dioxide at growth levels much higher than those who signed.

And one would be wrong...

If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following:

• Emissions worldwide increased 18.0 percent;
• Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1 percent;
• Emissions from nonsigners increased 10.0 percent; and
• Emissions from the United States increased 6.6 percent.

Source: American Thinker; hat-tip: Britain and America

Time For Dialogue

This blog has previously argued for taking a more conciliatory approach to Iran (see Conservative Muslims May Be Right and Influencing Iran). In the wake of Monday's revelations from the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, The Washington Post is also now suggesting America should open direct talks with Tehran:

Negotiating will appear at first to be a sign of weakness. The Iranians could use talks to exploit fissures between the United States and its allies, and within the U.S. political system.

But there is a good case for negotiations. Many around the world and in the United States have imagined that the obstacle to improved Iranian behavior has been America's unwillingness to talk. This is a myth, but it will hamper American efforts now and for years to come. Eventually, the United States will have to take the plunge, as it has with so many adversaries throughout its history.

Going on, the author Robert Kagan notes, "The United States simultaneously contained the Soviet Union, negotiated with the Soviet Union and pressed for political change in the Soviet Union -- supporting dissidents, communicating directly to the Russian people through radio and other media, and holding the Soviet government to account under such international human rights agreements as the Helsinki Accords. There's no reason the United States cannot talk to Iran while beefing up containment in the region and pressing for change within Iran."

Whether the Bush administration proves to be "smart and creative enough" to adopt such an approach could affect us all.

America Leads Where Europe Fails

At a time when Europe is relaxing its sanctions against Robert Mugabe in order to permit him to have his say at the European-African summit in Lisbon, congratulations should go to America for imposing new travel and financial sanctions on another three and a half dozen people with ties to Zimbabwe's 83-year-old president, including the offspring of some prominent Zimbabweans studying in the US, whose visas will be revoked.

The Zimbabwean people deserve more than Europe's half-hearted support and their misery must not be allowed to continue. If you have not yet signed The Difference petition calling for the British government to do everything in its power to increase pressure on the dictator and his ZANU-PF regime, please take a moment to do so.

The Special Relationship

May I commend to you Tim Montgomerie's article in the Weekly Standard on David Cameron's meeting with President Bush in Washington: Cameron's Conservatives? Tim notes:

Cameron's was the first visit by a Tory leader to America's capital city for six years. That's the longest absence since World War II. Those Americans who want long-term partners should realize the importance of the conservative party. It's not just because it is increasingly likely to form Britain's next government, but because the conservatives are the natural allies of an outward-looking America, and particularly of the GOP's worldview.

Our Arabian "Shared Values"

With Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells suggesting that Britain and Saudi Arabia could unite around our "shared values," I thought I'd see what this year's Country Report on Human Rights Practices said about Saudi Arabia:

The following significant human rights problems were reported: no right to peacefully change the government; infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments; beatings and other abuses; inadequate prison and detention center conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention, sometimes incommunicado; denial of fair public trials; exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence; arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, and correspondence; and significant restriction of civil liberties--freedoms of speech and press, including the Internet; assembly; association; and movement. The government committed severe violations of religious freedom. There was a widespread perception of serious corruption and a lack of government transparency, as well as legal and societal discrimination and violence against women. Other religious, ethnic, and minority groups faced discrimination. There were strict limitations on worker rights, especially for foreign workers.

Which somewhat explains why the likes of the Jerusalem Post are upset at America's First Lady, Laura Bush, donning the hijab in Saudi Arabia — as they conclude, it's not exactly a symbol of the freedom and liberty that her husband claims to have spent his presidency trying to introduce to the Middle East.

Irrespective of the cultural significance of the headscarf, Dan Hannan is surely right to observe about King Abdullah's state visit:

"When a free democracy lowers its standards in order to accommodate a sleazy autocracy, the former is diminished and the latter magnified. We are, all of us, slightly cheapened by the readiness of our leaders to appease a handful of rich men. And don’t fall for any nonsense about British jobs, by the way. We pay the same price for Saudi oil that other purchasers do, and they the same price for our luxury goods. Our foreign policy is not, or at least ought not to be, synonymous with the interests of BAE Systems."

I for one am looking forward to the new complete English translation of The Thousand and One Arabian Nights, undertaken by Cambridge University's Professor Malcolm Lyons and due to be published next year, the first since Burton's in 1885.

When Strategic Interests Conflict

What's the difference between human rights abuses in China and human rights abuses in Turkey? On one the US is willing to ignore threats from its counterpart, bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal, its highest civilian honour on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama today. On the other the US is backing off from legislation approved last week by a congressional panel to call a vote on a measure declaring the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks an act of genocide.

The proximity of Turkey to the ongoing conflict in Iraq might explain the apparent inconsistency...

Iran Has The Last Word

Is there not a degree of irony that, while the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams has now welcomed last week's "Common Word" claims by 138 of the world's top Muslims that Islam is a religion of "peace", Iran's top cleric, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has urged Muslim countries to boycott a US-sponsored international peace conference on Palestinian statehood next month?

Korean Endgame

Someone contacted me via Facebook to ask what I make of the South Koreans having talks with North Korea. As often, the IHT provides an excellent analysis:

The urgency from the North Korean perspective today derives from an understanding that America's presidential alternation often wipes out diplomatic momentum, and indeed, where the last two changes in Washington were concerned, wiped the policy slate clean toward Pyongyang altogether, requiring long, costly efforts to get going again.

Kim Jong Il, who is widely believed to have serious health concerns, and also appears to be preoccupied with engineering his own dynastic succession, likely feels that now is the best time to strike a deal that would end the state of war, win badly needed economic assistance, establish diplomatic guarantees for his regime and help ensure its survival.

Clearly, there is still a long road ahead for the peninsula but, 54 years after the end of the Korean War, we can but pray that the nuclear regime gets the help that it so urgently needs from the outside.

Conservative Muslims May Be Right

When it comes to issues such as the importance of family and marriage in society, Christians can find that they have more in common with people of other faiths than they do with people of no faith. So, although you may not find me agreeing with Muslims on any points of theology, the Conservative Muslim Forum may well be right in their response to the Globalisation and Global Poverty Policy Group's report An Unquiet World:

"Regardless of the foreign policies of the United States, hostility to Iran is not in Britain's national interest. A constructive engagement with Iran offers many possibilities for progress... Instead of joining the United States in demonising Iran, Britain should assist Iran in addressing these legitimate security concerns in a manner that improves our security rather than weakening it."

In the current issue of The Difference, Christopher Catherwood argues that neither a military strike nor economic sanctions would be likely to provide a solution to the threat posed by Iran:

"To attack Iran would be to unite all Iranians against us, even those who might otherwise be deemed progressive. An attack on Iran would also, the experts claim, be logistically almost impossible to win, as the relevant nuclear material can be hidden in thousands of underground places all over the country, even if the two major installations could successfully be taken out in a large-scale strike.

But if we cannot attack Iran, and the hardliners and even moderates seem to want a nuclear capability, what can the West do? Russia refuses to get involved, as it considers anybody who damages the US or its interests as its friend, however dangerous they might be. Not only that but if Iran’s neighbours, including a majority Shia Iraq, refused to operate sanctions, then no matter how harsh the financial measures the rest of the world might want to impose, they would be unlikely to provide a solution."

So, what options are left? Well, as the GGPPG intimated in An Unquiet World, there is the possibility of applying diplomatic pressure through India which, despite having voted twice against Tehran at the IAEA, maintains a strategic relationship with Iran and "is extending ties to other countries in the region with an equal interest in restraining Iran, including Saudi Arabia. The Saudi kingdom is India’s largest provider of oil and is home to an estimated 1.5 million Indian nationals. As important, it is one of the few Islamic theocracies viewed favourably by the West, which has worked for a demilitarised Kashmir and has supported India’s observership in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference."

As this blog argued earlier in the year, there is also an opportunity for America to undermine the mullahs' theocratic regime and promote democratic reform by lifting economic sanctions. So, to answer the question about whether or not to engage with Iran, I am inclined to agree with the CMF that while we should continue to oppose Iran’s nuclear weapon ambitions, our approach "should be one of negotiation and mutual dialogues, not threats" and "our primary goal should be assisting in the strengthening of Iranian state institutions to avoid any risk of the transfer of nuclear technology to non state actors."

So Much For Good Intentions

David Miliband may have learnt that it's not good enough to have good intentions, but neither is it good enough for the foreign secretary to appear completely unbriefed about one of the hottest international issues of the day — namely, the protests in Burma. His inability to provide a satisfactory answer to any of Jeremy Paxman's questions about British investment in Burma [the world's second highest] or commitment to pro-democracy movements there [none] on Newsnight was appalling.

Our government should be following President Bush's lead, who today announced a tightening of sanctions against the Burmese junta:

"The United States will tighten economic sanctions on the leaders of the regime and their financial backers. We will impose an expanded visa ban on those responsible for the most egregious violations of human rights, as well as their family members. We will continue to support the efforts of humanitarian groups working to alleviate suffering in Burma, and I urge the United Nations and all nations to use their diplomatic and economic leverage to help the Burmese people reclaim their freedom."

To Engage Or Not To Engage...

"Would Columbia [University in New York] ever invite a white supremacist, or an evolutionary creationist, or an advocate of the murder of abortion doctors to speak on campus, counting on the power of dialogue to counter offensive and even odious ideas? Clearly it wouldn't."

The IHT argues that it would have been better for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to have been given permission to lay a wreath at Ground Zero to the victims of 9/11† than to be invited to speak at Columbia:

"It would have opened him up to certain questions. Maybe somebody at Columbia will ask them anyway. For example: If you're sorry about the victims of 9/11, what about the victims of the Holocaust, which you deny took place? And, When are you going to lay a wreath to the victims of violence by Hamas and Hezbollah, whom you bankroll, train and arm?"

What do you think?

† Apparently this may yet happen anyway, as the visit is still on the leader's itinerary.

NHS Needs Competition

"Healthcare right now in America - and I think it has been true of your experience of socialised medicine in England - is not only very expensive, it's increasingly less effective. I had prostate cancer seven years. My chance of survival in the US is 82%; my chance of survival if I was here in England is below 50%. Breast cancer is very similar. I think there's something to the idea that there are many more private options driving the system that create altogether better results."

Nothing quite like a reality check from the Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York ... Wonder what Gordon Brown made of that?

It's The War, Stupid!

George Bush - under enormous political pressure at home - needs to ensure that his voters cannot say that now even the Brits are deserting him. He will know what it is that his visitor needs to go home happy and he will want to deliver it.

Key to that is a war - not the one which Britain and America started but one which they hope to help stop - the war in Darfur. Both men are backing a UN resolution this week which will not merely establish a 19,000 strong peacekeeping force in Darfur and will not only back a peace process between the warring factions but will also offer Sudan a package of long term economic support if it agrees to co-operate - a carrot to accompany the sanctions stick.

For Gordon Brown this would prove that something can be done to tackle what he calls the greatest humanitarian crisis the world faces. For George Bush it would prove that America is willing to act on the world stage to build and not just to destroy.

Nick Robinson seems to think that the rebranded trans-Atlantic alliance might finally bring about decisive and long overdue action in Sudan. Much as I would love to believe it, with the likes of China and the EU still making "more time for diplomacy," I can't see the Brown-Bush summit being that successful.

After Guantanamo

"Prisoners will be leaving Guantanamo for their home countries in the weeks to come. The closure of that appalling gulag may be trumpeted as a triumph of human rights, but the husks of the prisoners who have suffered so long are merely being passed down the line for the next chapter of their abuse."

I commend to you an article by the legal director of Reprieve, a UK charity representing prisoners denied justice, in the New Statesman about the fate of prisoners being released from Guantanamo Bay, warning: "Much as they want to get out of Guantanamo - a purgatory of imprisonment without charge or trial - repatriation may take these men to hell itself."

Obama, Islam & The West

Religion, as everyone knows, is a big deal in American politics. Which is why Barack Hussein Obama might be just what the world needs as successor to George W Bush.

Described as "a liberal's liberal" and "way to the left of the repositioned Mrs Clinton," the media has understandably latched onto the question of race and asks whether he could become America's first black president. However, the question of faith is equally interesting. For, although he is a committed Christian, as is indicated by his non-Western names, he comes out of a Muslim background. Last October he wrote in a piece called "My Spiritual Journey" in Time magazine: "I was not raised in a religious household ... In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology." So, like the vast majority of the world's Muslims, it may be a nominal Muslim background. Nonetheless, Muslim it is — as is evident from his 1996 biography, Dreams from My Father, which describes how his father was a Muslim, he was raised by a Muslim stepfather, and his first two years education was at a Muslim school. To any orthodox Muslim, that makes him a Muslim — and, as a professing Christian, an apostate Muslim, at that.

Just as Obama is quick to reject any suggestion that his campaign represents "an easy shortcut to racial reconciliation," neither does his candidacy promise any swift solution to the problem of radicalised Islam. However, it does offer him a unique opportunity to reach out to moderate Muslims, who represent the majority within Islam, and invite them to affirm article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief."

Writing "The next president" in the current issue of The Difference, Michael Veitch concluded, "Whichever candidate ultimately ends up in the White House, the sort of relationship they choose to forge with Britain and the rest of the world promises to be a spectacle no less fascinating than the election itself." Taking a personal stand against the kind of rhetoric we have heard preached even this week by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama Bin Laden's deputy, over "apostate" Salman Rushdie's knighthood, may not win Barack Obama the American presidency, and would almost certainly make him the prime target of Al-Qaeda's hatred, but it would go a long way in helping draw a clear distinction between the radical and the moderate sections of the Muslim community.

As this week's Newsweek notes, "From his earliest days as a politician, Obama has made a career out of reconciling opposing sides." Having consistently opposed the Iraq war, he might be uniquely placed to help reconcile Islam and the West.

Life Is Not Cheap

"Afghan life is not cheap and it should not be treated as such." [Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan]

"A whistling.
Laila dropped her books at her feet. She looked up to the sky. Shielded her eyes with one hand.
Then a giant roar.
Behind her, a flash of white.
The ground lurched beneath her feet.
Something hot and powerful slammed into her from behind. It knocked her out of her sandals. Lifted her up. And now she was flying, twisting and rotating in the air, seeing sky, then earth, then sky, then earth. A big burning chunk of wood whipped by. So did a thousand shards of glass, and it seemed to Laila that she could see each individual one flying all around her, flipping slowly end over end, the sunlight catching in each. Tiny, beautiful rainbows.
Then Laila struck the wall. Crashed to the ground. On her face and arms, a shower of dirt and pebbles and glass. The last thing she was aware of was seeing something thud to the ground nearby. A bloody chunk of something."

Earlier today, I finished reading Khaled Hosseini's latest novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. Laila's story may only be fiction, but it makes the Afghan President's criticism of "indiscriminate and unprecise" operations by NATO and US-led forces, which he says have killed 90 civilians in just over a week, all the more poignant.

The Three Deals

Three deals were on the table today:

1. European Union leaders were haggling over their new constitution treaty;
2. Britain and America were discussing a new defence trade cooperation treaty; and
3. The World Trade Organisation's four most powerful members were continuing the Doha Development Agenda negotiations, aiming to help poorer countries develop their economies through new trade flows.

The last has collapsed two days early, in part because the EU, ever protective of its farm spending, was unwilling to make any real cuts in its tariffs and subsidies, though both Brussels and Washington were apparently "pleased with each other for showing flexibility." The second has been completed successfully and should enhance the trans-Atlantic partnership. The first, clearly of far greater importance to Europe's navel-gazing leaders, drags on.

Says a lot about the West's real priorities, doesn't it?

Not Another Cold War

"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Asserting that John F. Kennedy overstated his case in his inaugural address in 1961, the International Herald Tribune has an interesting take on last week's speech by President Bush on Communism, Islamism and freedom:

After Sept. 11, Bush replicated the excesses of the Cold War when he established a prison outside the law at Guantánamo Bay, circumscribed domestic civil liberties, encouraged the use of torture abroad, and alienated long-time allies by insisting on invading Iraq without their support.

"Like the Communists, the followers of violent Islamic radicalism are doomed to fail," Bush said. He is right, but why strengthen their cause by abusing human rights and embarking on a divisive military intervention, much like those in the Cold War?

See also: The New Cold War and Star Wars

Moment of Truth

The chairman of the disreputable United Nations Human Rights Council has today presented its members with a "take-it-or-leave-it" ultimatum on a proposed new set of rules for how it will operate.

The 47-state Human Rights Council, launched in 2006 to replace its discredited predecessor, the Human Rights Commission, has until Monday night to complete year-long negotiations on how it will work. However, given its decision earlier this year to end routine scrutiny of human rights abuses in places like Iran and Uzbekistan, and its failure to condemn human rights abuses occurring anywhere around the world except in Israel, we ought to be asking what point there is in financing such a body.

Very sensibly, the United States is not a council member, rightly maintaining it is no improvement over its heavily politicised predecessor. Given that the best anyone has to say of the planned rules is that, if agreed, "the council will really not be too bad" even though "all could find something to object to," is Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico really inviting us all to leave the council? Whether or not that is what he means, if we truly want our foreign policy to have an ethical dimension, I suggest we would be better off following America's lead and instead investing in groups such as the Prague Democracy and Security Conference.